


Peacock Strut

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Bad Flirting, F/M, Gift Giving, John Seed getting steadily more exasperated, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pining, Rating May Change, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-08 18:38:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14699946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: Someone's tryingveryhard to impress the Deputy.Trying a littletoohard, in her opinion.





	1. call me on the line.

**Author's Note:**

> So the prompt from the lovely [221BFakerStreet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/221BFakerStreet) went something like this:
>
>> Fem!Deputy/John where John keeps trying to bribe/impress Dep with ever more ridiculous gifts, and she's obviously exasperated but maybe starts to find it endearing. Pls and thank you. <3
> 
> Here it is, and all I've been doing since then is knocking back pina colada drink mixes and setting Amazon luxury items' pricing from high to low for research purposes so I can keep writing it without Tumblr's crappy formatting. B)
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Seriously, I'm going to post something all angst and shit someday. Today isn't that day.~~

It’s a Patagonia jacket first. One of those hundred dollar outdoor gear types that are windproof, waterproof, fireproof, and whatever-the-fuck-proof on the outside, and warm and fleecy on the inside. It’s dropped off with a short, handwritten note at 8-Bit Pizza at some point during the night, and naturally, it’s Adelaide who finds it when morning rolls around.

“Oh, _girl,”_ she drawls appreciatively, handing it over to Cody when the deputy walks in with Boomer at her heels. “Someone’s got it bad for you.”

Cody takes the jacket in confusion, holding it up and puzzling over it. Then, Adelaide hands her the note, written in tight, even letters.

_Deputy,_

_Hope you find some use for this.  
_

There are two heavily scratched-out words underneath, and nothing else. Adelaide grins and taps the two words. “Now I’m no expert, but if I were to guess, I’m thinkin’ one of those says _love_ and one of those says _from_ , and whoever it was gave up pretty quick afterwards.”

Cody stares at her, then the jacket. Finally, she slides the jacket on over her shoulders (perfect fit, of course) and zips it up. It’s comfortable, and just by the feeling of the fabric alone, she knows it’s new. “Did anyone see who left it?” she asks.

Adelaide shakes her head, but her smile doesn’t falter a fraction. “Nope. Happened in the middle of the night, I guess. But,” she holds up a finger. “Ain’t that many people in Hope County with that kinda money. Ain’t that many at all.”

\- - -

It starts to get ridiculous with the second gift.

There’s a hunting blind in Holland Valley that Cody’s gotten fond of. It’s secluded and quiet, and well-hidden enough that she can safely stow some of her equipment there without worrying about one of the Peggies carrying it off. It’s the perfect hiding place for her intents, and prior to that point, she was sure no one else knew about it.

Evidently, she was wrong about that.

It’s a little after nine in the morning, and with Boomer keeping close behind her, Cody heads to the blind for an ammo run. Almost immediately, Boomer goes into a sniffing frenzy, his nose going right for the repurposed garden table hidden behind camouflage netting. Cody frowns and walks over to it, finding a pair of sunglasses folded up beside an ammo can. A small card is tied to the nose piece, the note written in the same tight, controlled handwriting.  
  
_Throw those cheap Foster Grants away, please._

“What the hell,” she whispers, turning the card over like it’s magically going to tell her something new. Then, she gets a good look at the sunglasses. _Three hundred dollar_ Oakley carbon fiber sunglasses; all brand new with a burnished shine and that look that says ‘be prepared to look like a massively rich douchebag’.

It’s enough to make her have to sit down in the sunbleached plastic lawn chair next to the table, wondering what the hell she’s done to get a jacket and sunglasses that combined are worth as much as her old apartment’s rent. With a sigh, she unties the note, and gives the sunglasses a once-over like they’re magically concealing the world’s tiniest pipe bomb. She even lowers them down at her side for Boomer for collaboration’s sake. He sniffs twice before his tail wags happily. _All clear._  
  
She puts them on top of her head, deliberately not lowering them, wearing them exactly like someone else she knows.

This time, she can’t ignore Adelaide’s speculation. She’s pretty sure she knows who they’re from.

\- - -

It takes about an hour of deliberation on if she’s doing the right thing or not, but she can’t stop _looking_ at it. For that matter, neither can Sharky.

 _It_ is a bottle that was left on the doorstep of 8-Bit Pizza like a milkman’s delivery. _It_ is a bottle of _Dom fuckin’ Perignon,_ sleek and black and shining in the bright Montana sunlight, where it definitely does _not_ belong. It belongs on some swanky dinner table, poured into crystal champagne flutes with gold trim or some fancy shit like that.

“Holy _shit,”_ Sharky keeps crowing, circling it like a vulture.  “What kinda fairy godmother do you even _have_ , Dep?”

“Not one I asked for,” Cody replies sullenly, running her finger over the button on her radio.

“We should crack this sucker open,” he declares. “That’d make for a fuckin’ _cash_ bonfire.”

It would, and she’d love to, but there’s that whole adage about gift horse’s mouths, and she’s been staring into this one for a while. They haven’t even touched it yet, even to check the vintage, since Cody’s been treating it like a bomb needing defusing. She grunts and runs her thumbnail in between the plastic slats of her radio speaker. “Alright, Sharky. Can I promise you to secrecy here for a second?”

He looks up in confusion before nodding. “Yeah, why?”

“‘Cause I have a call to make.” Then, with deliberate slowness, she switches channels to one she’d hoped she would never have to call. She presses the key and sighs. “John, you there?”

Sharky’s eyes go wide, but he dutifully shuts up.

There’s a bit of a wait before John’s voice comes through, clear and far too pleasant. “ _Good afternoon, Deputy. To what do I owe the pleasure?”  
_

“I think you accidentally left somethin’ important out here. Want me to hold onto it for you until you can swing by?”

John laughs, all smooth and casual, like he doesn’t have rage episodes and flip tables or tattoo people out of spite. “ _I take it you got your gift.”  
_

“Weird thing to get someone you hate.”

“ _On the contrary, Deputy. You’re intriguing when you’re not being outright frustrating and destructive.”  
_

Across from her, Sharky mouths the word ‘boner’ before making some sort of sign language interpretation of it with his fingers and nodding solemnly. Cody just rolls her eyes.

“Well, listen. It’s not like I don’t appreciate all of this, but… Uh, it’s kinda awkward having to explain why I’m walking around with sunglasses that cost as much as a car payment, y’know?”

“ _There’s nothing stopping you from explaining it,”_ John replies with mock innocence.

“There’s one or two things I can think of.”

Now Sharky’s doing some charade of slow-dancing, dipping an invisible partner before fluttering his eyelashes and mouthing, ‘Oh, _John!’_ Cody picks up an empty tin can from the concrete and chucks it at him, missing his head by only a few inches. He grins and puts his hands up in mock surrender.

John laughs again, and she can almost picture the son of a bitch reclining in his chair, feet up on the desk, microphone stand in his hand. His sunglasses would pushed up on his head while his too-blue eyes glance out at the perfect sunny day outside. And he would look _stupidly_ handsome, even though he’s got a whole hardware store worth of screws loose. “ _You know, Deputy, the right thing to do would be to thank me. Or better yet, you could say–”  
_

“No,” Cody says firmly. “No, no, and also _no._ ”

He grumbles a bit, but at last says, “ _A thank you will do for the moment, then.”_  
  
Apparently unhindered by a projectile can of beans, Sharky does the universal gesture for a handjob, and then the OK gesture and a wink.

Cody’s gonna kill him.

“In a bit, John,” she says. “I have an errand to run, and then I’ll thank you proper.”

There’s a short pause, and when John speaks, he sounds pleasantly surprised. “ _I’ll be eagerly awaiting it then, Deputy.”  
_

“Over and out,” Cody replies, switching the radio off. Then, all her attention is on Sharky.

“Oh, fuck,” is all he says, and he breaks into a run with one Junior Deputy hot on his heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr](https://radiojamming.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also, [here](http://hawkfurze.tumblr.com/post/174006468170/i-needed-to-draw-this-after-reading-radiojamming) is some lovely imagery of Cody dancing with John for imagery's sake.


	2. call me, anytime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Catch me flinging this on here before I go to bed. Wtf is proofreading. I don't know her.
> 
> Also, thank y'all so kindly for all the wonderful comments so far! <3 I haven't had a chance to reply yet, but hopefully after a short shift at work tomorrow, I can answer them! You're all so sweet and hopefully you enjoy this chapter, too. :D (There's a lot more expensive gift-giving and terrible flirting to come. This is all just the tip of John's hecked up Armani iceberg.)

If it weren’t for the looming threat of Eden’s Gate and the general atmosphere of being caught in a warzone, Cody thinks it might be a pretty pleasant morning. The Big Sky State earns its moniker by ten o’clock, when the sky is a brilliant, clear blue, and cirrus clouds appear like paintbrush streaks across its canvas. The air smells like summer, like sun-warmed wood and earth. The jukebox in the Spread Eagle crackles out a Woody Guthrie song, which blends into the warm air with the sound of the church bell ringing the hour and the low creaking of someone’s porch swing in the breeze.  
  
It’s a beautiful morning, and Cody’s spending the better part of it sprawled out on the hood of someone’s ancient ‘67 ZT, wielding a red pen on her well-loved map of Hope County. There are dotted lines and stark Xs and all manner of circles and smiley faces drawn across the grid. There are even some unflattering caricatures of the Seed siblings in the fray, with John Seed scowling down at Fall’s End, a speech bubble proclaiming, “YOU’LL PAY FOR THI$$$!” She taps the drawing with the capped end of her pen before subconsciously reaching up and pushing her Oakleys back on her head.  
  
(Mary May thought the sunglasses were pretty funny, although she had no idea who they were from. “Deputy Oakley’s got herself a pair of Oakleys,” she had said with a smirk. Then, she proclaimed the whole sight to be, “ _Lame._ ”)  
  
It’s been over a week since John Seed felt that dropping off a bottle of Dom Perignon was a perfectly acceptable thing to do for someone that he’s sworn is unclean, a nuisance, a sinner, obnoxious, infuriating, and plenty of other lovely pejoratives. Meaning it’s been a week since Cody promised a proper ‘thank you’ before taking off after Sharky and giving him the greatest headlock and noogie ever delivered in the great state of Montana. Thus, it’s been a week where she’s resolutely _not_ thanked John, nor spoken to him, nor heard a word from him. Even Dutch has commented on it, saying he found John’s silence “creepy”.  
  
Cody sighs through her nose and sketches a tiny house shape over a section of forest between John and Jacob’s regions, noting one of her own caches. Beside her, Boomer attempts to catch a cabbage butterfly hovering over some weeds peeking up through cracks in the asphalt, his claws _click-click-click_ ing on the pavement—  
  
_Click_ , goes something that is definitely not Boomer.  
  
A short, static burst follows it, and Cody’s hand instinctively goes to her radio, expecting Dutch to suggest an outpost in need of liberating, or disturbing news from some cardinal direction.  
  
“ _Deputy._ ”  
  
_Dep-yoo-tee._ Shit.  
  
She grits her teeth and leans back on the windshield of the ZT. “The one and only,” she says as casually as she can. “What can I do for you, Mr. Seed?”  
  
Mary May’s already poking her head out of the Spread Eagle’s doorway, her eyes wide and her expression confused. Her hand is on her own radio, like she’s only a matter of seconds away from giving John an earful of her own ire. Cody shrugs and points to the radio while shaking her head. _No idea._  
  
“ _Oh, some conversation to fill a void, I think. You’ve been awfully quiet this last week. How unlike you._ ”  
  
“Might say the same,” Cody replies. “The only thing I’ve heard from you are those sermons you’ve got going on repeat. You under the weather? Take a vacation?”  
  
She can hear him snort over the speaker, as derisively as anyone can through layers of static and miles of distance. “ _And turn a blind eye on you, Deputy? Never,_ ” he says. “ _If anything, I’ve been cleaning up after your numerous messes. You’ve made my region less than idyllic, to say the least. And all this, all of the burnt out vehicles and body counts—_ ” The radio goes quiet for a second, until he keys back in with the sound of an exhale. “ _I even had a gift prepared for you. One I thought you would truly enjoy. Now I’m thinking of retrieving it, for all the difficulty you’ve so kindly given me._ ”  
  
She wants to ask if it’s anything to do with the bottle of Dom now wrapped in an old henley in one of her caches near the Henbane, but that might tip off Mary May with less than pleasant consequences. Instead, she goes with a much milder, “Huh. Consider me intrigued.”  
  
“ _You should be, Deputy. I put a lot of thought into it, some of which was against my better judgement,_ ” John says. “ _But it’s been disheartening to learn that you’re not blazing your destructive little trails across my region as per status quo. You might have found it by now otherwise._ ”  
  
Cody silently marvels at this. He makes it sound as if he’s disappointed that she hasn’t been frequenting her usual trails. She hasn’t even been to the pizza place since the day after John left her the champagne. “Well, my apologies, John,” she says, glancing down at her map while she speaks. There are plenty of places that she hasn’t returned to. “Hopefully I can get you back on the edge of your seat soon. Might have to give me a hint as to whereabouts, though.”  
  
Mary May’s gone from confused to incredulous, and she silently mimics a bear trap snapping shut with her hands. Cody nods and holds up one finger for Mary May to give her a second.  
  
“ _And ruin the surprise? Please, Deputy, I don’t want to detract from the experience. And you’re a clever girl,_ ” he says, a smile curling his voice. “ _Besides, you didn’t thank me for last time, so it’s only fair._ ”  
  
He’s still holding onto her promise. Of course he is.  
  
“Suppose so,” Cody replies stiffly. She folds one leg over the other and watches Boomer attempt to leap a picket fence to chase the butterfly. “I won’t keep you waiting too much longer. Sound good?”  
  
“ _I’m counting on it,_ ” he says— No, he practically _purrs_ into the speaker. In another life, John might have been a decent phone sex operator if his eggs hadn’t gotten royally scrambled.  
  
He disconnects before she does, and two things happen at once. Dutch comes on with a confused, “ _What? What the hell was that?_ ” and Mary May crosses the space between the bar door and the ZT in record time, her hands spread in the helpless, silent version of Dutch’s question. Cody decides to answer both at once.  
  
“I have no idea,” she says.  
  
“ _Be careful, kid,_ ” Dutch says, and it’s amazing how she can _hear_ him side-eyeing. “ _I don’t know what John’s planned for you, but... Well, it’s John. Can’t be good._ ”  
  
“Acknowledged.”  
  
“ _Hope it is. Dutch out._ ”  
  
Mary May isn’t giving her the out that Dutch does. “What the hell is his _deal?_ He can’t leave you alone for ten seconds? Can’t leave _us_ alone?”  
  
Cody puts her hands up as placatingly as she can. “Mary May, I promise I have no idea. If it’s a trap, then that’s what it is.”  
  
“He wants you _dead,_ Dep,” Mary May says, hands on her hips now. “The whole damn cult does. I’d be damned if it weren’t a trap.”  
  
“I won’t know unless I find out, right?”  
  
There’s a long silence where Mary May stares at her like she can’t decode Cody. Boomer crawls under the fence, forlorn for lack of butterflies. Someone’s sprinkler sputters to life in the distance, spraying the ashy husk of a burnt-out car. Then, Mary May sighs in something a little like defeat and says, “One of these days, that ‘leap before you think’ thing is gonna get you killed.”  
  
Cody offers a small smile in consolation. “Hasn’t done the job yet.”  
  
\- - -  
  
It’s a rainy, miserable day when Cody finally finds John’s gift. The day is in every way the opposite of the perfect morning two days prior. Rain comes down in sheets, and more clouds roll down the ridges of the Whitetails, heavy and gray and far from promising. The wind bites hard enough that Cody has to wrap herself in her (perfect) Patagonia jacket, running from outpost to outpost to duck out of the weather. For the first time in awhile, she’s alone; in retrospect this isn’t the most intelligent choice given the possibility of being caught in a trap. Mostly, she just wants to get a few jobs over with before she stays inside somewhere warm and dry for the rest of the evening.  
  
Her last stop is an old outdoor archery range, little more than a few sodden bales of hay with neon-orange targets spray-painted on their surfaces. A chipped plywood sign propped up on a bale near the gravel driveway proclaims it to be the Holland Valley Archery Club, which is a _very_ optimistic name. Cody enjoys it for the practice, especially having had to go from handguns to the heavy draws of compound bows in a matter of weeks. It’s also another cache site, being far enough away from any cult outposts to prevent it getting undue attention.  
  
And, naturally, it’s where John’s elusive gift is.  
  
Cody doesn’t see it at first, focusing more on picking through a tupperware container for ammo than looking around in the rain. It isn’t until she closes the container and looks up does she see what’s out of the ordinary.  
  
For two days, she’s warily walked around Holland Valley, mindful of nearly every step. She’s kept her ears open for the command to use Bliss bullets on her. At the same time, she’s retraced some of her routes, glancing over cache sites, old outposts, and abandoned shacks for a single sign of John Seed’s messed up gift-giving mentality.  
  
The gift is propped up on the fence in between two of the targets, and at first glance, it seems to almost blend in with the foliage behind it. Then, as Cody slowly walks towards it, she makes out the unmistakable shape of a compound bow.  
  
A very, _very_ nice compound bow.  
  
Its shape is strange, undulating, more like a modern art piece done in camouflage than a weapon. When she picks it up, it’s impossibly light for its size, and the grip adheres so comfortably to her fingers that it’s like pulling the sword from the stone, like it’s always been meant for her hands. Just above the grip is a label reading RX-1, which doesn’t mean much to Cody. But someone might know.  
  
She picks up her radio in her left hand while her right tests the weight of the bow again. “Oakley to Jess,” she says.  
  
A soft stuttering noise, and then a bored, “ _This is Jess._ ”  
  
“Hey, question for you. Does ‘RX-1’ on a compound bow mean anything special?”  
  
There’s a long pause. An uncomfortably long pause. “ _Uh, repeat that?_ ”  
  
“‘RX-1’ on a compound bow. Like, a lightweight one. Kind of fancy-looking?”  
  
“ _Holy fuck,_ ” Jess breathes, and it’s the closest Cody’s ever heard her come to reverence. “ _Tell me you’re holding that in your hand right now._ ”  
  
“Yeah, actually.”  
  
“ _Dep, that’s a Hoyt RX-1. As in, like, the best fuckin’ compound bow on the market. Those things go for like a grand and a half._ ”  
  
Unless some wayward archer has magically lost or misplaced a compound bow worth nearly two thousand dollars, it’s definitely John’s gift. Why John would get her a deadly weapon is beyond her comprehension, as it makes even less sense than the jacket, sunglasses, and bottle of stupidly expensive champagne. It’s the antithesis of Eden’s Gate’s progress, especially after John’s complaint about her _mess._ She’s deadly with a bow, especially in combination with Jess, and John has to know this. There are no other explanations that come to mind except that this _isn’t_ from him and is indeed misplaced.  
  
Jess interrupts her confused reverie. “ _Please tell me you’re bringing that beautiful bastard back with you,_ ” she says.  
  
“Of course. I gotta finish up out here, but I’ll bring it home.”  
  
“ _Good,_ ” Jess replies, and Cody has never heard her sound more excited. “ _Perfect. Yes._ ”  
  
“Alright. Thanks, Jess. Over and out.”  
  
Jess signs off at the same time, and Cody’s left with the bow in her hand, perfect curvature dripping with rain. Cody wants to call John and demand an answer; demand _several_ answers. She wants to know what kind of game he’s playing at, what angle he’s found in his planning, what he expects to get out of this. Her hand practically itches on the radio, but she can’t bring herself to make that call yet. There are a lot of things to sort through, without Addie or Sharky or Jess or Mary May providing commentary. She needs to think before she leaps, like Mary May said. Can’t be so impulsive.  
  
Cody thinks for a record-breaking eight seconds before her hand is on the radio. She switches to the channel she hasn’t gone to in over a week.  
  
“John,” she says, maybe a little too breathlessly. Part of it might be caused by the value of the bow finally saturating into her. There are diamond necklaces out there that have cost less. “Pick up, you son of a bitch.”  
  
His voice practically _rolls_ in. “ _That’s not a very polite greeting, Deputy. You’re lucky I answered._ ”  
  
“You’re lucky I don’t kick the door of your ranch down,” Cody retorts. Then, far more curtly, “ _Explain._ ”  
  
“ _Explain what? I’m utterly clueless._ ”  
  
“The bow. The... The fuckin’ _everything_. What’s your angle?”  
  
“ _Oh, you like it?_ ” He asks the same way someone might ask for an opinion of a brooch or a flower arrangement. It’s so social and pleasant that it makes her want to scream. “ _Honestly, I’m not so skilled in the market on bows. I had to ask for some insider opinions._ ”  
  
She wants to ask who— No, _no_ she really doesn’t want to ask. Scratch that thought entirely.  
  
“What the hell do you want from me?” she asks, _demands._ “You try to drown me and carve me up like a Thanksgiving turkey and now you’re giving me shit left and right. I mean... For fuck’s sake, John, what am I supposed to do with a bottle of Dom Perignon?”  
  
“ _Drink it. Or let it sit until the vintage is worth more,_ ” he says easily.  
  
“In the middle of Montana while I’m fighting a cult?”  
  
“ _You make a good point. Drink it, then. Humanity might not last long enough for the vintage to be a worthwhile investment. That’s a pity._ ”  
  
Cody wants to scream in frustration and maybe test the new bow out on her radio first. Her higher functions tell her that maybe that would be a bad idea, and that Dutch would have some choice words for her. Her base functions say that she needs to destroy something, or make a lot of noise, or displace it all somehow. Her college-level psychology class brain says that displacement sounds dandy.  
  
“Okay,” she says, once she gains an iota of control back. “I don’t know what you’re up to, or what the hell you want from me other than the Y-word, which I’m not saying to you now nor ever. But...”  
  
She must take too long to continue, as he slides in with a slow, easy, “ _Yes, Deputy?_ ”  
  
“But I didn’t say thank you the other day, and I said that I would.”  
  
“ _You did,_ ” he agrees.  
  
“So pick a place and a time,” she finishes. “And I promise I won’t pin your hemispheres together with an arrow.”  
  
She half expects him to laugh it off, to tell her that he’s not that stupid. Instead, she hears a static-filled thoughtful hum. “ _Alright,_ ” he says at last. “ _And I won’t ventilate, drown, or otherwise maim you. I think it’s reasonable, despite everything you’ve done._ ”  
  
What they’re aiming for, Cody doesn’t know. She has no idea why she’s agreeing to meet with him, or what for. All she knows is that it sounds like that’s what he’s wanted the entire time, and there’s no other explanation beyond that. She knows she’ll plan something, and so will he, so it’s really any wonder what their meeting will culminate in. In short, she’s not sure if she’s got some residual Bliss on her Patagonia jacket or not. Otherwise, she thinks, she wouldn’t be making such a stupid decision.  
  
“Fine,” she says. “No arrows, no bullets, and no Bliss.”  
  
“ _Agreed,_ ” he replies. Then, that smile comes back to his voice, curling like smoke in the air. “ _You’ll hear from me soon, Deputy._ ”  
  
The channel goes dead as soon as the last syllable taps the air.  
  
For better or worse, trap or not, Cody can’t find herself dreading the prospect.


	3. come up off your color chart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello yes i'm updating after 5000 years. i fought with this chapter and went through two drafts before settling on something that i think i like. OTL hopefully people are still up for reading this (and thank you for all the kudos and kind comments!!)
> 
> (also i'm using the lyrics for 'call me' by blondie for every chapter from here on out, yes i am.)

“You are in such deep shit, Dep,” Sharky says pleasantly. His sunglasses are pulled down over his eyes while he suns himself on the picnic table they’ve dragged out into the parking lot of 8-Bit Pizza. “I mean, like, the deepest of deep. You’ve hit the Mariana Trench of deep shit.”  
  
“Don’t sound so worked up about it,” Cody replies. She’s sprawled out on a beach towel on the packed dirt, wearing her old Ray Bans (because _fuck_ John) and the purple tank top she took from Dutch’s bunker. She’s absolutely a perfect target, and if any Peggies were to roll up at the moment, they’d be able to stroll back to Faith with happy news that they stuck Cody like a pincushion while she was trying to even out her tan.  
  
Sharky snorts and reaches up to adjust the rolled-up hoodie under his head. “Hey, I’m not the one getting my Amazon wishlist worked on by John fuckin’ Seed, my dude.”  
  
“It’s not _my_ wishlist,” she retorts, gesturing vaguely in his direction. “Why the hell would I want douchebag sunglasses and overpriced champagne?”  
  
“Good point.” She hears the creak of Sharky rolling over on the table, and then his voice muffled by his hoodie. “You’re still in deep shit.”  
  
Almost as soon as he says it, there’s a sharp _thwack!_ and metallic clatter of Jess Black testing out a stupidly overpriced compound bow on some hapless cans. It’s followed by a laugh that falls just on the worrying side of maniacal, and it just reinforces Sharky’s mantra of the depth of shit Cody’s in. So far, only Sharky and Adelaide know about John’s weird definition of generosity. And even though it’s a ridiculously warm September day, Cody shivers at the thought of what Jess would do if she found out.  
  
Or Grace. Or Nick. Or _Mary May—_  
  
Cody outright groans and pushes her sunglasses up just enough to rub at her eyes in irritation, watching the little phosphene fireworks bloom behind her eyelids.  
  
Sharky snorts. “You’ve hit enlightenment.”  
  
“I don’t even know what to _do_ ,” she groans. “I agreed to _meet_ with him. Do I have a closed head injury or what?”  
  
“I mean, you’ve cracked your head a couple times since I’ve known you,” Sharky points out thoughtfully.  
  
There has to be some kind of science behind that. Or maybe some of the Seed family’s collective crazy has finally rubbed off on her, if not just the Bliss fumes. After heaven only knows how many times she’s been blessed, marked, hunted, or kidnapped in general, it’s any wonder that she still has the wherewithal to make major decisions, let alone operate heavy machinery or use firearms. Something tells her the sheriff’s department would frown on how she’s been living the past few weeks, if a good portion of the sheriff’s department wasn’t currently being held hostage.  
  
“Hey, you know what you _could_ do,” Sharky continues, rolling onto his side to face her better. “He keeps getting you stuff _he_ likes. Why don’t you start dropping hints about stuff you actually want? Like, call him up and be all, ‘Ohhh shit, what’s up, John Seed? You know what I’ve always wanted? Fuckin’ tickets to Disney World!’”  
  
She huffs a laugh. “I kinda doubt John’s going to want to get me tickets to anywhere outside of Hope County.”  
  
“Fair, but what about like, asking for an awesome truck? God knows Eden’s Gate has ‘em.”  
  
“Sharky, I really don’t want to ask John for anything else. I mean, he can’t be doing this without a motive, right?”  
  
“Maybe he gets off on it.”  
  
“ _Sharky!_ ”  
  
“No, brochacho, I’m dead serious!” Sharky exclaims, pointing at her like a philosopher. “That’s a thing, right? Guys buying expensive shit for people they really like, and they get their rocks off on pictures of the receipts or whatever?”  
  
“I don’t think that’s how it goes.”  
  
“Totally is. He’s probably the kind of dude who would buy you some crazy expensive diamond necklace so he can get a picture of you naked with it.”  
  
Cody grimaces. “Bring that trash can over here so I can hurl into it.”  
  
“Oh come _on_ , like you haven’t thought about it,” he drawls. “I mean, anyone can tell that John wants to do some serious horizontal tango with you. Maybe he just has a sugar daddy thing on top of that.”  
  
“Please never say ‘sugar daddy’ ever again.”  
  
He grins. “ _Shu-gar dah-dee,_ ” he enunciates with the deliberate slowness of a Speak n’ Spell.  
  
Cody responds by attempting to smother herself with the beach towel while Jess obliterates what sounds like a large coffee can.  
  
“At least test it out,” Sharky concludes. “Ask for something stupid and see if he gives it to you. If he doesn’t, then I’ll never give you shit over it again. And if he _does—_ ”  
  
He leaves the answer hanging in the air, and Cody wants nothing more than to hide under another picnic table and never come back out. Because if Sharky’s right (which, by proxy, means that Adelaide’s right, and that’s _terrible_ ), then Cody is going to have to live with the fact that John Seed has something for her; something that isn’t just whatever kind of weird respect for his enemy or Trojan Horse tactic that she’s been trying to parse out. None of it makes sense, and it makes even _less_ sense that she’s met him halfway.  
  
The whole situation is so damn confusing that Cody’s starting to put some serious stock into the head injury theory.  
  
“Okay,” she says, taking in a deep breath. “I’ll test it out today, if he doesn’t call with the location first. I’ll drop hints, and if he does it, feel free to shovel as much shit at me as you want.”  
  
“Like a fuckin’ zookeeper. Scout’s honor,” Sharky promises.  
  
Jess hits another can with the Hoyt, but it’s followed by the definite sound of glass shattering. All Cody hears is a low, “Aw, _shit,_ ” which accurately sums up how Cody feels about everything.  
  
\- - -  
  
Cody calls John up when she’s as far away from any of her friends and she can possibly be. That happens to be at the top of a radio tower near a reclaimed cattle ranch. Her feet hang off the edge of the grating, a bag of Doritos wedged in between two ladder rungs so the wind doesn’t catch it and send it into oblivion. She idly watches a few cows lazily graze, and some of the Resistance going about doing perfectly normal farm work. If it weren’t for her sniper rifle propped up beside her, the clouds of smoke on various points of the horizon, or her completely tamed cougar slinking around in the prairie grass at the tower’s base, it might be a lovely, normal day in rural Montana.  
  
Something explodes in the distance, and Cody sighs, reaching for her radio. Dialing it to his channel, she inwardly hopes that he’s the only one who can hear it. If not, then there are probably a few Peggies out there who are either extremely confused or laughing their asses off.  
  
“Yo, John,” she says, reaching over and fetching a Dorito from the bag. “You copy?”  
  
“ _Deputy! What a surprise. I was just thinking of calling you up,_ ” he replies, and Cody pretends that she’s not alarmed by the speed of his response. “ _I was finalizing our plans, actually. Just pressing out a few little details._ ”  
  
He makes it sound like a date at the Ritz-Carlton. If Hope County had an equivalent, she’s sure he’d either have reservations or outright own the place.  
  
“Yeah, uh, about that. I’m going to have to take a raincheck until I can get a new truck,” she says, most definitely lying. Her red Kimberlite pick-up is parked in the trees on the other side of the road from the tower. She can even see the massive dog bed that she repurposed for Peaches in the cargo bed. “One of your people very kindly blew it up last night.”  
  
There’s a short pause. “ _And you can’t just go find another one? Or walk?_ ”  
  
“It was my favorite truck. I spent a lot of money on that thing,” Cody says matter-of-factly. “Mostly I’m not cool with the fact that it was one of _your_ guys. He was just out there, screaming about how he was blowing it up in your honor. I think he kinda had a thing for you.”  
  
John makes a strained noise through the radio. “ _Charming,_ ” he says dryly. Then, there’s a muffled shuffling noise before he clears his throat. “ _Allow me to make amends for his behavior, Deputy. I want us to meet in good faith, after all._ ”  
  
Oh shit. Sharky might have been right.  
  
“ _And what kind of truck was it?_ ”  
  
Shit.  
  
“A custom 2015 Kimberlite TCZ-M,” she hears herself saying. “Red with black detailing. It even had my favorite pair of fuzzy dice in it.”  
  
More silence. She hears the radio chirp twice as though John is keying it, rethinking it, and keying it again. Finally, he says, “ _Well, I apologize for the appalling behavior of my people. Granted, it might be an apt reward for your own behavior, but I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, Deputy._ ”  
  
“Very charitable.”  
  
“ _Oh, I know._ ” He sounds like he means it, and if Cody wasn’t about six seconds from propelling herself off the tower in horror of the possibility that Sharky might be right, she’d laugh about it. “ _Allow my apology to reassure you that I’m still fully prepared to meet with you at Seed Ranch in two days time._ ”  
  
“You can’t make a truck out of apologies.”  
  
“ _No, but I’m sure you’re a resourceful person. You’ve certainly proven that to me and my family several times, in all manner of creative ways. If you can take your wrath out on the faithful by means of a shovel, I’m sure you can find your way to Seed Ranch without a problem,_ ” he says smoothly. “ _Oh, and one more thing, Deputy. If you haven’t already imbibed it with questionable company, bring the Dom with you._ ”  
  
Before Cody can even retort to that with something about how she let Jess use it for target practice, the line goes dead. She curses and jams the mic back onto her belt before eating her Doritos in frustration.  
  
On the bright side, John didn’t say a word about the truck, which means Sharky might be wrong. On the side with less of a silver lining, he made it sound like they were going to make a date out of their meeting. Champagne at an over-priced and oversized mansion with its own airstrip and boat dock, happily shared between an unstable lawyer-turned-baptist with all of his ducks so far out of a row that they’re in different lakes, and her, the one person that he’s sworn to pry sins out of by any means.  
  
Nothing wrong with that at all.  
  
\- - -  
  
It’s still dark out when Grace wakes her with an insistent shake of her arm. “Hey. Oakley,” she whispers, half-leaning over Cody’s air mattress. Cody groans sleepily and looks up at Grace with bleary eyes. Grace is completely dressed, her rifle strapped over her shoulder, and a strange, panicked look on her face visible in the blue lighting coming from the vending machine. “We got an issue,” she says.  
  
“Wha?”  
  
“It’s something outside,” Grace says, standing up and adjusting the rifle strap while looking around the room anxiously. “Jess n’ I were trading places for the night watch, and when I got outside, it was just...” She trails off and shakes her head, making a gesture towards the front door. “I didn’t even _hear_ anything.”  
  
She sounds authentically distraught, which makes Cody sit up in alarm. If Grace is that worried as opposed to her usual level-headedness, then something is obviously _way_ wrong.  
  
Cody yawns and reaches for her hair tie, pulling her hair up in a loose bun on top of her head before she pulls her boots on and slips into her Patagonia jacket (it’s _warm_ , she reasons, no matter who it came from). She grabs her rifle from beside the mattress before following Grace out to the parking lot.  
  
She’s not even a full step outside the door when she nearly drops her rifle in surprise.  
  
Just at the mouth of the driveway into the dirt lot is a sleek black pickup truck, shining in the moonlight. It’s a newer model of the TCZ-M, but there’s no mistaking the body of it. The presence of the thing is just as jarring as the stylized Eden’s Gate cross painted in white on the doors. Rather than the solid cross itself, it’s done in careful pinstriping.  
  
Cody’s torn between making a beeline back to bed and calling John up and screaming obscenities after him. Fortunately, Grace intercedes before Cody can do or say anything. “There’s something on the windshield, but Jess and I didn’t want to touch it in case the thing is rigged. I scouted the place in case it was an ambush, but there’s no one. It’s like someone airdropped it and left.”  
  
Cody walks up to the truck, and indeed, there’s a white envelope held under one of the wipers. If it’s from who she thinks it’s from, there’s no immediate danger. Jacob and Faith are more of the trap and ambush type.  
  
She takes the envelope, hearing something metallic shifting around inside. She opens it, and finds a small notecard and a set of car keys.  
  
And in the same perfect, slanting script, the note reads, _2016 model. Only red available was in the Whitetails. See you tomorrow._  
  
This time, Cody doesn’t hesitate. She puts the car keys and note in the pocket of her jacket, shoulders her rifle, and walks right by Grace to head back into the dining room. Grace looks between her and the truck in confusion. “Wait, where are you going?”  
  
“Back to bed,” Cody replies. “Hopefully it’ll be gone by morning.”  
  
And in the back of her head, she reminds herself exactly where the bottle of champagne is, because if the truck is still there when she gets up, she has a long drive to Seed Ranch.


End file.
